264. ‘I’vo pensando, et nel penser m’assale’

I go thinking, and so strong a pity

for myself assails me in thought,

that I’m forced sometimes

to weep with other tears than once I did:

for seeing my end nearer every day,

I’ve asked God a thousand times for those wings

with which our intellect

can rise from this mortal prison to heaven.

But till now nothing has eased me,

no prayers, or sighs, or tears I produce:

and that is what has to be,

since he who had strength to stand, but fell on the way,

deserves to lie on the ground and find his level.

I see those merciful arms,

I which I believe, still open wide,

but fear grips me

at other’s example, and I tremble at my state,

that spurs me higher, and perhaps I near the end.

One thought speaks within me, and says:

‘What do you hope for? Where do you seek help?

Wretch, are you not aware

how much to your dishonour the time passes?

Take the wise decision: take it:

and tear from your heart

each root of pleasure,

that brings no joy, and allows no breath.

If you’ve long been weary and disgusted

with that false fugitive sweetness

that the traitorous world grants more to others,

why place your hopes any longer

in what is free of peace and certainty?

While your body is alive,

you have your thoughts in your control:

grasp them while you may,

since it’s dangerous to delay as you know,

and beginning now is not soon enough.

You know well what sweetness came

to your eyes at the sight of her

who I might still wish,

for our peace, had never been born.

Remember clearly, as you must,

how her image ran to your heart,

there where perhaps

the flame of no other torch could enter:

she kindled you: and if the deceiving fire

has lasted many years awaiting that day

that will never come, of our salvation,

lift your thoughts to a more blessed hope,

gaze at the heavens as they turn about,

immortal and adorned:

for if your longing, so happy at its ills,

can be eased down here

by the glance of an eye, by speech, or song,

what is that joy above, if this is such?’

From another side a sweet and bitter thought,

with its wearying and delightful burden,

seated in my soul,

oppresses the heart with desire, feeds it with hope:

that solely for glorious kindly fame,

feels nothing when I freeze or when I burn,

or if I’m pale and thin:

and if I kill it, it’s reborn more fiercely.

From when I first slept in my cradle

it came to me, increasing day by day,

and I fear the tomb will enclose us both.

Yet when my soul is stripped of these limbs,

that desire cannot travel with it:

and if Latin or Greek

speak of me after death, it is mere air:

and so, because I fear

to always gather what an hour will scatter,

I wish to leave the shadows, grasp the true.

But that other desire with which I’m filled

seems to destroy the other as it is born:

and time is flying,

so that writing of her does not calm me:

and the light of lovely eyes that melts me

gently in their serene warmth,

controls me with a rein

against which no wit or force avails.

What joy then if my boat has all sails spread

if it’s still dragged on the rocks by those two cables?

You who free me from all other ties,

that bind me to the world in diverse ways,

my Lord, why will you not free

my face ever of this blush of shame?

Like a man who dreams,

death seems to be before my eyes:

and I would make defence, yet have no weapons.

I see what I have done, truth badly understood

does not deceive me, rather Love compels me,

he who never lets those who believe

in him too much follow the path of honour:

and I feel a gracious disdain, bitter and severe,

from time to time, in my heart,

that reveals every hidden thought

on my forehead, where others see:

to love a mortal being with such faith

as is owed to God alone, is the more

denied to those who seek more merit.

And it cries out still in a loud voice

to reason, lead astray by the senses:

but though mind hears, and thought

attends, habit spurs it on,

and pictures to the eyes

her who was born only to make me perish,

by pleasing me too much, and herself.

I do not know what span heaven allotted me

when I was newly come to this earth

to suffer the bitter war

that I contrive to wage against myself:

nor through the corporeal veil can I

anticipate the day that ends my life:

but I see my hair alter

and my desires change within me.

Now that I think the time for death

is near, or at least not far,

I’m like one that loss makes shrewd and wise,

thinking of how it was he left the path

of right, that brings us to our true harbour:

and I feel the goad

of shame and grief turning me about:

yet the other does not free me,

that pleasure so strong in me by custom

that it dares to bargain with death.

Song, you know I grow colder

with fear than frozen snow,

knowing I must truly die:

and that by indecision I’ve always turned

to ashes the best part of my life’s brief thread:

nor was there ever a heavier burden

that that which I sustain in this state:

for with death at my side

I search for new help in living,

and see the better, and cling to the worst.

Note: re: the last line, Seneca’s‘Inferna tetigit possit ut supera assequi.’ (‘I touched the depths, to reach the heights.’)

‘Dante and Virgil Visiting Hell (Inferno Canto 22)’ - Otto Greiner (German, 1869 - 1916), The Yale University Art Gallery